Lightning strikes twice for Wooster baseball team

By RANDY WORRELL Sports Staff Published: April 3, 2014 4:00 AM

WOOSTER -- It wasn't exactly the extra-inning thriller like Tuesday night's Ohio Cardinal Conference baseball opener between archrivals Orrville and Wooster, but Wednesday's rematch had the same feel when all was said and done: The Generals breathing a sigh of relief with their second straight victory -- and the Red Riders, well, trying to figure out what went wrong for the second time in as many days.

"When we go to Chippewa Saturday for a doubleheader, we should be going up there as an angry, irate baseball team," Orrville coach Scott Marshall said. "Take nothing away from Wooster, they've got a lot of talent and are very well-coached, but we feel like we gave a couple of games away these last two days. Tuesday it was six errors that did us in, and then tonight, we gave them five outs in the seventh."

With Orrville leading 6-4 headed to the bottom of the seventh on Wednesday, the Generals scored three times in a wild, and zany, last at-bat to nip the Red Riders 7-6 at Wooster High School to improve to 2-0, while the Red Riders drop to 1-2 overall and 0-2 in OCC play.

Cam Daugherty led off the bizarre seventh for Wooster, reaching safely when his sharply hit grounder was misplayed, then went to second on the subsequent throw to first. Ryan Lally followed with a walk, putting runners at first and second with no outs.

Ben Murphy was up next, who delivered a single to left, but on Wes Stauffer's throw home, Daugherty was interfered with on a collision with shortstop Kyle Ritchie headed for third. The ruling was Daugherty would have scored on the hit, cutting the Orrville lead to 6-5.

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To make matters worse for the Red Riders, however, was that Lally was granted third base on the play as well, and still with no outs in the inning and Generals at the corners.

Chad Harrison, on in relief of freshman starter Austin Domer (3 IP, 1 H, 4 R, 7 BB, 2 K) since the third, struck out Adam O'Brien for the first out. Harrison (4 IP, 5 H, 2 R- both unearned, 3 BB, 4 K) then got Mitch Miller to swing a third strike in the dirt, but Orrville's throw from the catcher to first was off line, loading the bases for eighth-hitting Ben Nolt. Nolt was promptly hit by a Harrison pitch, plating Lally and the score was all of a sudden tied at 6-6.

"We have a veteran team that I'm sure will take these two losses and ultimately learn from them to make us a better team, but the way we gave these games away is unacceptable," Marshall said. "We started a freshman pitcher, took an early lead, battled back after we fell behind, and then gave it away at the end. We've got to be better in those situations if we are going to be the team by season's end that we want to be."

Drew Wharton was up next for Wooster, who then drew a bases loaded, full count walk-off walk to give the Generals their second, come=from-behind win in as many days.

"I thought we played OK tonight, but we lacked the energy we had on Tuesday at Orrville, at least early on," Wooster coach Derek Boyd said. "We were lackluster in the first few innings, and I told our guys afterward that we need to compete for seven innings, just not at the end when we need to make something happen. I thought Aaron Saal (5 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 BB, 5 K) pitched pretty well for his first conference start, and we played pretty good defense, which we are going to have to do until we get our bats going a little more consistently."

Orrville scored single runs in the first two innings on RBI-singles from J.T. Perez and Ritchie before Wooster tied the game at 2-2 in the bottom of the second. Wooster tallied a pair of runs in the fourth to lead 4-2, before Orrville scored once in the fifth, and three times in the sixth to lead 6-4.

Daugherty earned the victory for the Generals, allowing just one hit in 1 1-3 innings of relief.

Orrville outhit Wooster 7-6 for the game, with Perez leading the way with a double and single for the Red Riders, while Murphy led the Generals with a pair of singles. Wooster committed one error, while Orrville had three, all in the seventh inning.